An analysis of Speech Acts in "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

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An analysis of Speech Acts in "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Assemay Turlibek

Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Selma ELYILDIRIM

LE4601218(1)  PRAGMATIS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

NOVEMBER 2023

An analysis of Speech Acts in "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Undoubtedly,  language is an incredibly powerful tool that serves several types of purposes. It allows us to express our emotions, share thoughts and information, foster social connections, communicate messages, and carry out various actions. In Harley’s view, it is a system of symbols and rules that enable people to talk about anything[1, p 4]. As a dynamic and complicated system of communication, language has historically been an area of research in many fields. One of the many theories that have had a major impact on our comprehension of language is the concept of speech acts. Whether it be through acts or utterances, the phenomena of speech act may be found in every social interaction that occurs throughout the course of human life. The literature can be considered as one of its key sources because of its unique ability to capture and reflect the complexity of human communication.  This study aims to explore an illustration of the speech act and its main classification and to analyze some passages or sentences from the literary work. This study is limited to analyze speech acts in the literary work “The Picture of Dorian Gray” written by Oscar Wilde.

As stated by Verschueren [2, p 22], this theory has traditionally been considered to be one of the most fundamental aspects of both semantics and pragmatics for a considerable amount of time, and the British philosopher John Austin was the one who did the initial introduction of it. So, in the Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics by Crystal, this term is defined as "a term derived from the work of the philosopher J. L. Austin (1911-60), and now used widely in linguistics, to refer to a theory which analyses the role of utterances in relation to the behavior of speaker and hearer in interpersonal communication"[3, p 446].

Generally, speech acts theory questions the idea that language is a neutral medium of communication. That is to say, it sees language as a performative tool that people use not only to say things but also to perform different actions. Speech acts as a subfield of pragmatics used in linguistics, philosophy, legal theories, etc. As John Austin stated in his book “How to Do Things with Words”: “It was for too long the assumption of philosophers that the business of a ‘statement’ can only be to ‘describe’ some state of affairs or to ‘state some fact’, which it must do either truly or falsely. (…) But now in recent years, many things, which would once have been accepted without question as ‘statements’ by both philosophers and grammarians have been scrutinized with new care. (…) It has come to be commonly held that many utterances which look like statements are either not intended at all, or only intended in part, to record or impart straightforward information about the facts (…).”[4, lectures1, p 2] However, the study of speech acts, currently can be known as cross-cultural pragmatics, but it originated in the field of the philosophy of language.

According to Mey's reference, Austin had specifically noted the following regarding it: "Speech act is verbal action happening in the world."[5, p 95] Furthermore, Austin made a significant contribution that was essential in establishing the groundwork for comprehending the performative aspect of language and his threefold framework, which brings us into a world where words move beyond their denotative meanings to become tools for achieving specific communicative purposes. This is the area where locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts take place. Shortly, while the literal meaning of utterances is referred to as locutionary acts, illocutionary acts involve the force or action that is intended to follow from a speech act. The purpose of perlocutionary acts is to explore the impact that speech acts have on readers, with the goal of shedding light on the intricate relationship that occurs between language and interpretation within the setting of a literary work. It is crucial to note that the construction of a speech act is accomplished through the utilization of these three categories of speech acts.

As most of us are aware, they can be broadly categorized into two types, direct speech acts, where the act is clearly stated by linguistic means. As an example, go to bed!. Another type of speech act is indirect speech act, which is characterized by having a syntactic structure that is typically linked with a different type of act. For instance, "You should have been in bed long ago".

 Additionally, by being one of the most prominent people in the field, Searle developed Austin's theory and gave a somewhat different decomposition of speech acts in his key book. [6, p 24] He distinguished three unique acts:  

• an utterance act is the production of speech sounds, words, and sentences;
• a propositional act means referring to an entity and predicting some properties of an entity;
• an illocutionary act stands out as making a statement, command, request, etc.  

John Searle's classification of speech acts as assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarative presents an organization reflecting the numerous ways in which language can be used to achieve tasks. This classification is built on Austin's framework. The classification system serves as a bridge between theoretical notions and practical applications. It offers a framework for understanding the numerous purposes that speech acts serve in a variety of communicative contexts by categorizing them according to their specific characteristics.

As I mentioned before, literature serves as one of the primary sources for comprehending the complexities of language because of its ability to portray the specifics of human communication and the art of speech acts. I mean, by creating characters, conveying meaning, and developing the plot, authors employ speech acts through the skillful use of language.

 “The Picture of Dorian Gray” can be considered as a source of illustrative examples that align with certain features of speech act theory. In particular, this is true about the manner in which characters use language to perform a variety of activities within a story. For instance, in the dialogue between main characters Basil Hallward and Lord Henry: